Vehicles are equipped with various types of communication systems that provide or facilitate various types of functions. For instance, a vehicle may be equipped with a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) location determination system that communicates with a GPS satellite and provides the ability to locate and track the vehicle. Vehicle security systems are also widely used in vehicles today. For example, a security system may communicate with an outside entity and when an attempt is made to break into a vehicle, the security system may attempt to warn a private security center (or some other appropriate entity such as the police) that a break-in is occurring. Some jurisdictions require the use of vehicle security systems because of the high number of vehicle break-ins or thefts in these areas.
Stolen vehicle tracking (SVT) applications also exist where a vehicle is provided with components that can detect if a vehicle is stolen and/or assist in the tracking of the stolen vehicle. Many SVT approaches rely upon GPS technology to pinpoint the location of the vehicle and a Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) cellular network to report the incident to a service provider via Short Messaging Service (SMS) or General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) data connection. Other examples of connections and protocols can be used.
Potential vehicle thieves have sometimes attempted to jam the receiver hardware at the vehicle by using a device that creates a strong wide-band signal in the receive band to block the GPS satellite and GSM network signals to the vehicles. In so doing, the theft of the vehicle could not be detected or reported.
In other examples, thieves or other criminals attempted to clone base stations. That is, the services of a base station are imitated by devices provided by the criminal and once a user (or the user's device) establishes communication with the cloned base station, the user or device incorrectly believed that the cloned base station was a valid base station. Thus, among other problems, the vehicle's security system were often fooled into sending warning messages to an invalid base station, no action was taken by the cloned base station (since it was provided by the criminal), and the vehicle was stolen without detection. Previous attempts at detecting jamming, detecting the presence of cloned base stations, and reporting these occurrences to a security center have generally been unsuccessful, slow, and/or expensive to accomplish.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions with respect to their corresponding respective areas of inquiry and study except where specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.